2of3Max Dreskin plays ball with classmates during a recess at Prospect Sierra Middle School in El Cerrito. He lives in Berkeley, sees homeless people on the street every day, and wants to help.Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

3of3Max donated $165 of his savings and money he received for his birthday to a program for homeless women and their children.Photo: ANDY ROSS, Courtesy Andy Ross

A lot of teenagers spend their money on clothes, junk food, video games and movie tickets. At least that’s what I did growing up in New Jersey and South Carolina.

Not Max Dreskin, a seventh-grader who attends Prospect Sierra, a private elementary and middle school in El Cerrito.

He recently gave his money to the Women’s Daytime Drop-In Center, a program for homeless women and children in Berkeley, moved to do so because he sees people living on the streets in decrepit conditions every day. Some of it was money Max received from his family for his 13th birthday on Oct. 29.

His uncle gave him $40, and told him to give it to someone else as “tzedakah,” a Hebrew word that signifies charitable giving as righteous behavior and a moral obligation.

The rest of the money came from his savings. In total, Max gave $165 to the drop-in center. That may not seem like much to you but, according to the center, a donation of $50 provides 25 warm meals to homeless women and their kids.

Think of it this way: Max just bought 75 meals.

Max Dreskin, 13, a seventh-grader at Prospect Sierra Middle School in El Cerrito, donated to a women’s drop-in center.

Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

He wanted to give to a local organization so the impact of his donation would be felt locally. His mother recommended he research the drop-in center, and that’s what he did.

“I think it’s a really important cause right now, and I wanted to help with that,” he told me.

What struck me isn’t that Max made the donation, but how clearly he spoke about homelessness in the Bay Area.

“I live in Berkeley, and I walk around with my friends and I see it all the time,” he said. “I see it so, so much. It really saddens me.”

It makes me sad, too. We should all want to do more to help each other.

According to the most recent one-night point-in-time homeless counts, taken every one or two years, there are about 29,000 homeless people in all nine counties of the Bay Area on any given night. Berkeley had about 1,000 homeless people at last count.

“If you don’t have family or friends who are affected by it, sometimes it’s really hard to understand the concept,” said Leslie Berkler, executive director of the center.

The center receives funding from various sources, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the city of Berkeley. Berkler told me the center gets 25 percent of its donations from individuals and foundations during December. The operating budget to run the center and Bridget House, a temporary transitional housing program for five single mothers and their children, is $550,000 per year.

“We’re grateful for all the donations that keep our center open,” Berkler said.

The Women’s Daytime Drop-In Center, operating out of a house in West Berkeley, has been a place for homeless women for three decades. It’s where they can go to get a hot meal and rest when homeless shelters are closed during the day. It also provides counseling, support groups and help with complex housing applications.

As the weather gets wetter and colder, more women naturally want to be inside during the day, Berkler said. Some use the computer to look for jobs and housing. Some come to take naps on the center’s sofas.

Abby Guinn, Prospect Sierra’s elementary school division head, is on the Women’s Daytime Drop-In Center board of directors. Her daughter is close friends with Max’s 10-year-old sister, Sophie.

Max and Sophie’s mother, Maria Raven, is an emergency department physician and associate professor of emergency medicine at UCSF. She does research and programming for homeless people in San Francisco who use the emergency room frequently.

Those associations “probably influenced him some, but he’s also sort of an emotionally tuned-in kid,” Raven said. “He’s kind of an empathetic person, I think, just by nature.”

Max loves playing tennis and basketball. By his own admission, his approach to giving to the center was nonchalant, to say the least. He stuffed dollar bills — 20s, a couple of fives, a 50 and a bunch of ones — into an envelope and gave the money to Sophie to give to her friend to give to Guinn.

Otis R. Taylor Jr. is the East Bay columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, focusing on the people who make the region a fascinating place to live and work. A South Carolina transplant, Otis spent more than a decade at The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper, writing about arts, culture and entertainment. Previously, Otis was the managing editor of a tech startup. Otis is interested in reporting on issues relating to diversity and equality in the East Bay, as well as the region’s history, culture and politics. He studied English at Clemson University.